1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to product installation in a data processing system and more specifically to platform specific payload management in the data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical installation technology in use stores all product payloads into a single repository. This storage aggregation serves well for cross platform, independent applications such as Java™ based applications, in which a large percentage of the product is operating system (OS) independent.
Installation management techniques, which use a heterogeneous repository of payloads typically, detect characteristics of a target platform of a user or requester and perform decisions using the information associated with the detected characteristics. A common process determines a target operating system, platform, and data storage bit targets for an installation to create an install package. For example, creating a Linux.x86.64.zip package representing a particular configuration for a Linux® operating system, x86 hardware, and a 64 bit installation; and in another example, creating an AIX.ppc.32 package representing a particular configuration for an AIX® operating system, PowerPC® hardware, and a 32 bit data storage installation.
The current technique accordingly requires products to support multiple different platform installation combinations in the form of predetermined combinations of operating system, hardware and data storage bit representations. While some products are installed using dedicated installers, other products use a generalized installer in the form of a user interface tool that has platform specific backend implications. In either case, platform specific installation tools and resources are required on a target system to perform and complete a product install on the target system with further additional post-install effort typically required.